Poetry By Brian Christopher Giddens

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Tying One on with Mom

I’ve been thinking about my mom lately. Saw a show where a guy’s mother died 
and he broke down in sobs because he couldn’t hear her voice in his head. A moment 
of pathos in an otherwise trite sit-com but it stuck in my mind. Mom died twenty-five
years ago, and I can’t remember her voice either.

We used to talk for hours, drinking. Me, apprentice alcoholic, Mom, the pro, passing 
on the family dynasty of dissolute drunks to the next generation. We’d sit at the kitchen 
table after I’d come home from waiting tables, sip whiskey and waters, smoke 
cigarettes. Kents for her, Benson & Hedges Lights for me, the fancy boy. 

The booze made conversation flow. Drinkers, lit up, get expansive, everything 
they say revelatory, everyone they talk to a long-lost pal. Mom and me were best 
buds when we drank. After I moved away and quit drinking I became righteous, 
a bit of a nag. A reformed drunk is a fair-weather friend.

Forty years later, I recall the warmth of whiskey, the tendrils of smoke. Her smile, 
blue eyes that looked like mine when I faced the mirror. Tears that appeared 
when the mood shifted and we wallowed in regrets. Regrets that linger, stuck 
to one’s skin, like the haze of cigarettes in a smoky, silent room.

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Brian Christopher Giddens writes fiction and poetry from his home in Seattle, where he lives with his husband, and Jasper the dog. Brian’s writing has been featured in the New York Times (Tiny Love Stories), Passager, The Bluebird Word, Rabble Review, Hyacinth Review, Roi Faineant, Glimpse, and other publications. He has been nominated for Best Small Fictions and the Monarch Queer Literary Award.
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